what up, blog?
How’ve you been? We haven’t chatted in a while. What up?
Really? I’m sorry. I figured that you had other people to hang out with. You totally should have called! I was busy, but I wasn’t that busy, you can always give me a ring, or write.
Well, I guess that’s true, but you’d think that since I’m anthropomorphizing you in my head, you’d just magically acquire the ability to write, speak, and act upon the world. No constraints, right, whatever goes? You are, after all, just part of my imagination.
Constraints? But I thought imagination was all about freedom. Dreams, you know, flying, falling, superpowers, there are so many things that are possible. It seems to me that when we really let our minds be free, we can imagine anything. Why would my brain limit my imagined personification of my blog to communicating only with me and not with the rest of the world?
Wait: so you’re saying that what I think, what I dream, is all just limited to things I already know? But what about learning? I can learn new ideas, acquire new perspectives, and use this new knowledge to break constraints. For example, today I learned about a whole body of work associating pronoun use in conversation to personality disorders. Now, when I reflect on my speech and others’, I’ll generate new perspectives and new ideas about the meaning in the words. There are new ideas. There are wheels, there are internets. I fundamentally disagree that everything has been discovered, everything has been invented, that everything is just a mashup.
Hm. You have a point. If I imagined you actually talking to people in the world, or even pretended that you were a separate entity from me, some might call me crazy. But no one would really believe I was crazy unless I acted on this believe. And isn’t it natural to dissociate one’s self from one’s expression of self? Isn’t that a natural part of writing? Unlike speech, I’m creating an artifact, something that literally and physically does exist separate of me. Therefore it seems perfectly natural to think of you as separate from me because you literally are.
No, I’m trying to make a point. You can influence the world if you want, because you exist separate of me. You may not have a body or a brain, but you have a connection to me. You’re like my child. And because of this, every word of you I write and then read causes me to reflect back on my own existence. You have arms and legs, but you can only use them to poke and prod and ping my brain. You may not be able to act on the whole world, but you do have influence on me. See, you’re freer than you think!
That’s true. I guess you’re free, but only on my terms. You’re less like a child and more like a robot. I’ve predetermined your scope of influence. You may lead to unexpected things, but they only occur within a certain range of possibility. Of course, a moment ago, you were saying I was under the same constraints, that the scope of my own existence is predetermined by my creators and my world.
Yeah, I’ll have to think about that. I don’t know. You’re pretty cool, blog. We should hang out more.
why do researchers choose the disciplines they do?
I been giving some thought lately to my peers’ career choices. Why do faculty choose the disciplines they do? There are the obvious reasons, like self-efficacy. For example, a physics professor probably pursued a Ph.D. in physics because she found herself good at it. An English professor may have been honored for his writing.
But I think there’s something else underlying these choices. Consider some of the extremes, such as mathematics and philosophy, or social work and education. Is there something about the determinism of mathematics that makes it attractive to certain personalities? Are there certain types of people who enjoy reveling in logic and abstraction? Do these characteristics of these areas of thought make people feel safe somehow? And the more humanitarian fields: is it driven by a strong desire to exercise values and morality? Scientists are also interesting: does the search for truth make them feel noble, or is their something trilling about the hunt for explanations?
I suppose we all have in common the desire to fill our lives with as much thought as possible. Is it insatiable curiosity or just a particularly low threshold for amusement? By that I mean we can engage ourselves in the smallest of details in the natural and artificial worlds, where as others, who could care less about research, require a much greater magnitude of novelty to be engaged.
a better fit
I’ve been thinking about buying a new car for mostly the wrong reasons.
Petty reason #1. My Civic has a terrible amount of road noise. Driving the local roads in Seattle, even at a paltry 25 mph, it’s like riding a coal mine cart in an Indiana Jones movie.
Petty reason #2. My Civic has a cassette radio and playing my tunes through my cassette adapter is, and always has been, like listening to a live recording on a cardboard speaker.
Petty reason #3. I love riding my bike with Elle, but I can’t get bike rack that fits through my apartment’s garage. I need a car that can effortlessly fit a big and small bike.
Petty reason #4. My Civic has a great turning radius and is small enough for city driving, but improving on both these dimensions would be even better for the narrow Seattle roads. It would open up a whole new world of parking opportunities!
Petty reason #5. My Civic is aging and approaching the high maintenance phase of its life. Who wants to spend time replacing a timing belt here, tires there as it slowly falls apart? Better to rid of it now and save that time for something more enjoyable, like eating cheap ethnic food on the Ave.
I suppose the only legitimate reason I have is that I feel surrounded by emblems of my broken marriage. I live with the car, the furniture, the bed, and the kitchenware of a failed 8 year relationship, and as shallow as it seems to gripe about things, it’s really hard to move on when I’m living and using things from my painful past. I don’t know how much that’s worth; I don’t think I could put a price on it. But surely a $150 monthly car payment is well below its value.
So what do I want? I’m looking at a Blackberry Pearl Honda Fit. They’re small, fuel economical, with extremely versatile space for people and things. I’m used to Hondas, their usability is one of the best in the car industry, and they’re pretty cheap. As much as I hate cars, I do spend a lot of time commuting back and forth to Kirkland, so why not have a nice, compact little car that can zip around those Lake Washington curves? The Fit wouldn’t be dramatically better than my ‘02 Civic, but would be an incremental improvement, in a petty sort of way.
sketching with words
I had a meeting today with the Human Interactions in Programming group at Microsoft Research today, along with a few other UW people, to talk about potentials for collaboration. Lots of opportunities came out of our meeting, but one thing stuck around in my head today after David Notkin made a comment about peoples’ misperceptions about what software is and is capable of. I replied to his comment this notion that there are all kinds of versions of a software artifact: versions on paper, versions in specs, versions floating around in developers’ heads, versions in users’ heads. And of course, the real version that ends up being built. The intriguing thing here is how all of these different conceptions end up affecting the actual software artifact. For example, think of two developers discussing some broken feature and how they want to fix it: if you really listen, the discussion is about future versions of the current version and all of the quality implications of the change. They fill the discussion with descriptions of the slightly modified system at a variety of levels of abstraction, with the goal of debating the merits of the modified system. The same conversation might occur between a program manager and a marketer, discussing ways of describing what it is that is being built.
It seems to me that all of these different versions of the system are essentially sketches, in the broadest design sense. They’re verbal sketches, and likely so because programs and software systems are so tricky to draw. So when two developers debate a change, they’re essentially drawing out the modification in the ether, letting the ideas linger in the air, critique the ideas in their phonological loops. I helped with a study by Mauro Cherubini looking at developers’ sketches, and the result was quite similar: in most cases, developers use diagrams in order to support discussions about changes to code.
I’m planning some studies looking at software developers’ design discussions and this idea of a verbal sketch could be quite helpful in finding meaning in the data.
my iPhone hates you
In fact, it hates everyone, especially other iPhone users. Six hour text message delays. Voicemails showing up a day later. In some cases, I’ll never even get the message. It’s driving me crazy! I had situations where people email me asking why I’m not picking up, and I’ll call them, but they won’t get my call. This is the best phone I’ve ever had, except for the phone part.
That said, I’m on the phone with Apple and AT&T right now, and they’re pretty awesome. They know what they’re talking about, they’re clear in their instructions, and the quality of the call is great, without any distracting background call center noise. Now if only they can fix it…
Trouble is twitching
Ever since I returned from a four day break in Portland, my cat Trouble has been particularly affectionate and noisy. The day I returned, he meowed through the night right next to me bed. I felt really guilty for making him so lonely, but eventually, he returned to normal.
Or so I thought. Lately, he’s been climbing high places, pointing his tail straight up and then twitching it like a big furry vibrator while he meows at me pleadingly. I pet him, I stroke him, I feed him treats, but nothing placates his strange new behavior.
I searched for twitching tails online and some sites suggest that he’s “offering a friendly, cheerful greeting” except for the twitching, which is associated with either being intensely annoyed or intensely happy. Is he still pissed off at me for leaving him alone so long? Or is he happy that haven’t left again?
Maybe I should just get him a little kitten to pick on while I’m gone.
in idle
Sometimes when life isn’t going well, I have to remind myself of everything that’s happened in the past few decade. I finish college, get married, become a young father. The wife cheats and leaves, and I meet major depression. Somehow, I get a Ph.D. and move to a new city, a new job and start over.
About the only thing that hasn’t happened in the past decade is the death of a loved one.
Should I really expect that things be fantastic again so soon? I ought to be frustrated from time to time. I should expect to be lonely now and then. I lost my wife and friend of seven years. How can I be so numb to all of this loss and change? I have this drive to move on and not let the past hold me down, but I think I take this detachment too far. I ignore the drama in my life because it brings me pain, when I know the only way I can move past it is to process it and feel it, until it leaves me.
I’m tired of grieving. I want to leave it behind. Yet all I see before me is the potential for more pain, more loss. I’m scarred and scared.
draught
today was a little nature dance,
with birds and deer, gnomes and cones
a middle earthen rousing cheer
for a potent Pilsner down the ear
think a little, thought
drink a little, hot
stink a little, rot
sink a little, lot
mr. god
I’ve been debating gay marriage rights with my uncle on Facebook. He recently replied with a bit about how loving it was of God to create the world for us, and ought we not obey him and his detestation of homosexuality?
Here was my reply (just under the 800 character posted item reply limit!):
“Hi, I’m God. I created this world for you. It’s complex, I admit. There’s pleasure, there’s pain. Your purpose won’t always be clear. But I think it’s pretty cool.
“The thing is, there are some problems. See, some of you will do everything right and die. Some of you will do everything wrong and live. Also, some of you will want to do harmless things, but if you do them, you’ll go to hell, i.e., two men sleeping together. If you’re intersexed, you’re screwed.
“And some of you will do things that will harm lots, and I’ll praise you for it! For example, those gays I mentioned? Don’t treat them the same. I know, they’re not hurting anyone, but it’s just wrong, okay? They deserve to suffer more than you do.
“No, I won’t tell you why, it’s not important. It just is. Look, if you’re having a hard time, it’s not my fault.
“Oh wait! Yes it is!
“Look, just follow the rules. If you do, you get eternal happiness. If you don’t, you’re screwed. Good luck!”
This is sadism, not love.
grading rant
I ranted about grading to my class today (that’s not my class above, that’s Joonhwan Lee’s thesis defense!). My basic argument was that before grading, approximately 150 years ago, we gave detailed, concrete, faceted feedback to students because there was no other way. We didn’t feel compelled to convert all of a student’s skills and knowledge into a single number or a letter grade. And, not only were there wonderful benefits to this form of feedback, but that form of assessment was devoid of all of the problems of a numerical assessment. Students cannot “game” a verbal assessment, but they can game a test. Teachers could spend the time they would normally spend grading paying closer attention to their students’ progress.
The worst part about modern grading is that most employers don’t care. They might use grades as a low-pass filter, to ignore applicants with less than a 2.5, but what they really care about is what a person can do. They want examples of writing, of thinking, of decision making. They don’t want numerical proxies for these, they want to see the results of these skills.
So who cares about grades? Students, faculty, and universities. That’s good news for me, since I’m universities are run by faculty and faculty guide students. Now its just up to me to convince a few thousand colleagues over the next 50 years that I am right.
